Wednesday Evening Bible Study (Intro to Jude Cont.)

Intro to Jude Cont.

• Jude and the NTThere are questions that we need to review regarding the date and authorship of Jude
  • Jude has some difficulty in getting into the NT at all; it is one of the books whose position was always insecure and which were late in gaining full acceptance as part of the NT. Here is some of the opinions of the great leaders and scholars of the early Church about it
  • Jude is included in the Muratorian Canon, which dates to about 170 and may be regarded as the first semi-official list of the books accepted by the Church. The inclusion of Jude is strange when we remember that the Muratiorian Canon does not include in its list Hebrews and I Peter. But, for a long time thereafter, Jude is spoken of with some doubt
  • In the middle of the third century, the biblical scholar Origen knew and used it, but he was well aware that there were many who questioned its right to be Scripture
  • Eusebius, the great scholar of the middle of the fourth century, made a deliberate examination of the position of the various books which were in use, and he classed Jude among the books which were disputed
  • Jerome, who completed the Latin version f the Bible, the Vulgate, in the early years of the fifth century, had his doubts about Jude; and it is in him that we find one of the reasons for the hesitation which was felt towards it
    • The strange thing about Jude is the way in which it quotes as authorities books which are outside the OT. It uses as Scripture certain books which were written between the OT and NT and were never generally regarded as Scripture
    • Here are two definite instances
      • The reference in verse 9 to Michael arguing with the devil about the body of Moses is taken from an apocryphal book called The Assumption of Moses
      • In verses 14-15, Jude confirms his argument with a quotation from prophecy, as, indeed, is the habit of all the NT writers; but Jude’s quotation is taken from the Book of Enoch, which he appears to regard as Scripture
    • Jerome tells us that it was Jude’s habit of using non-Scriptural books as Scripture which made some people regard him with suspicion; and, towards the end of the third century in Alexandria, it was from the very same charge that the blind theologian Didymus defended him 
    • It is perhaps the strangest thing in Jude that he uses these non-Scriptural books as other NT writers use the prophets; and in verses 17-18 he makes use of a saying of the apostles which is not identifiable at all
    • Jude, then, was one of the books which took a long time to gain an assured place in the NT; but, by the fourth century, its place was secure
• The Date
  • There are definite indications that Jude is not an early book. It speaks of the faith that was once delivered to the saints (3). That way of speaking seems to look back a long way and to come from the time when there was a body of belief that was orthodoxy
  • In verses 17-18, he urges his people to remember the words of the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ. That seems to come from a time when the apostles were no longer there and the Church was looking back on their teaching
  • The atmosphere of Jude is of a book which looks back
  • Beside that, we have to set the fact that II Peter makes use of Jude to a very large extent
    • Anyone can see that its second chapter has the closest possible connection with Jude. It is quite certain that one of these writers was borrowing from the other. On general grounds, it is much more likely that the author of II Peter would incorporate the whole of Jude into his work than that Jude would, for no apparent reason, take over only one section of II Peter
  • Now if we believe that II Peter uses it, Jude cannot be very late, even if it is not early
  • It is true that Jude looks back on the apostles; but it is also true that, with the exception of John, all the apostles were dead by 70. Taking together the fact that Jude looks back on the apostles and the fact that II Peter uses it, a date about 80-90 would suit the writing of Jude
• The Authorship of Jude
  • Who was the Jude, or Judas, who wrote this letter? He calls himself the servant of Christ and the brother of James;
    • There is the Judas of Damascus in whose house Paul was praying after his encounter with Jesus on the Damascus road
    • There is Judas Barsabas, a leading figure in the councils of the Church, who, along with Silas, was the bearer to Antioch of the decision of the Council of Jerusalem when the door of the Church was opened to the Gentiles. This Judas was also a prophet
    • There is Judas Iscariot
    • There is the second Judas in the apostolic band
      • John calls him Judas, not Iscariot. In Luke’s list of the Twelve, there is an apostle called Judas of James in the Greek. This is a very common idiom in Greek, and almost always it means not the brother of, but son of—so that Judas of James in the list of the Twelve is not Judas the brother of James but Judas the son of James
    • There is the Judas who was the brother of Jesus
      • If any of the NT Judases is the writer of this letter, it must be this one, for only he could truly be called the brother of James
      • Is this letter to be taken as a letter of the Judas who was the brother of Jesus? If so, it would give it a special interest. But there are objections
        • If Jude was the brother of Jesus, why does he not say so? Why does he identify himself as Jude the brother of James rather than as Jude the brother of Jesus
          • It would surely be explanation enough to say that he shrank from taking so great a title of hero to himself. Even if it was true that he was the brother of Jesus, he might well prefer in humility to call himself his servant, for Jesus was not only his brother but also his Lord
          • Further, Jude the brother of James would in all probability never have gone outside Palestine in all of his life. The church eh would know would be the one in Jerusalem, and of that church James was the undoubted head. If he was writing to churches in Palestine, hi relationship to James was the natural thing to stress
          • When we come to think of it, it would be more surprising that Jude should call himself the brother of Jesus than that he should call himself the servant of Jesus
        • The objection is raised that Jude calls himself the servant of Jesus and thereby calls himself an apostle
          • “Servants of God” was the OT title for the prophets. God would not do anything without revealing it first to His servants the prophets. What had been a prophetic title in the OT became an apostolic title in the NT
          • Paul speaks of himself as the servant of Jesus (Romans 1:1; Philippians 1:1). In the Pastoral Epistles, he is spoken of as the servant of God (Titus 1:1), and that is also the title which James takes for himself (James 1:1). The conclusion is reached, therefore, that by calling himself the servant of Jesus, Jude is claiming to be an apostle
          • There are two answers to that
            • The title of servant of Jesus is not confined to the Twelve, for it is given by Paul to Timothy (Philippians 1:1)
            • Even if it is regarded as a title confined to the apostles in the wider sense of the word, we find the brother son the Lord associated with the eleven after the ascension (Acts 1:14), and Jude, like the brothers of Jesus were prominent in the missionary work of the Church (I Corinthians 9:5)
            • Such evidence as we have would tend to prove that Jude, the brother of Jesus, was one of the apostolic circle and that the title of servant of Jesus is perfectly applicable to him
        • It is argued that the Jude of Palestine, who was the brother of Jesus, could not have written the Greek of this letter, as he would have been an Aramaic speaker
          • That is not a safe argument. Jude would certainly know Greek, for it was the common language of the ancient world, which people spoke in addition to their own language. The Greek of Jude is unrefined and forceful. It might well have been within Jude’s competence to write it himself; and, even if he could not do so, he may well have had a helper and translator such as Peter had in Silvanus
        • It might be argued that the heresy which Jude is attacking is Gnosticism, and that Gnosticism is much more a Greek than Jewish way of thought—and what wud dJude of Palestine be doing writing to Greeks
          • But an odd fact about this heresy is that it is the very opposite of orthodox Judaism. All Jewish action was controlled by sacred law; the first basic belief of Judaism was that there was one God, and the Jewish belief in angels was highly developed. It is by no means difficult to suppose that, when certain Jews entered the Christian faith, they swung to the other extreme
          • It is easy to imagine Jews, who all their lives had been slaves to the law, suddenly discovering grace and plunging into antinomianism as a reaction against their former legalism, and reacting similarly against the traditional Jewish belief in one God and in angels. In the heretics whose Jude attacks, it is in fact easy to see Jews who had come into the Christian Church more as deserters from Judaism than as truly converted Christians
        • Last, it might be argued that, if this letter had been known to have been the work of Jude the brother of Jesus, it would not have been so long in gaining an entry into the NT
          • But, before the end of the first century, the Church was largely Gentile, and the Jews were regarded as the enemies and the slanderers of the Church. During his lifetime, Jesus’ brothers had in fact been his enemies; and it could well have happened that a letter as Jewish as Jude might have had a struggle against prejudice to get into the NT, even if its author was the brother of Jesus
• Jude, the Brother of Jesus
  • If this letter is not the work of Jude the brother of Jesus, what are the alternative suggestions? There are two
    • The letter is the work of a man called Jude of whom nothing is otherwise known
      • This theory has be meet a double difficulty. First, there is the coincidence that this Jude is also the brother of James. Second, it is hard to explain how so small a letter ever came to have any authority at all, if it is the work of someone quite unknown
    • The letter is pseudonymous
      • That is to say, it was written by someone else and then attached to the name of Jude. That was a common practice in the ancient world. Between the OT and NT, scores of books were written and attached to the names of Moses, Enoch, Baruch, Isaiah, Solomon, and many others. No one saw anything wrong in that. But two things are to be noted about Jude
        • In all such publications, the name to which the book was attached was a famous name; but Jude, the brother of Jesus, was a person who was completely obscure; he is not numbered among the great names of the early Church
          • There is a story that, in the days of the Emperor Domitian, there was a deliberate attempt to see to it that Christianity did not spread. News came to the Roman authorities that certain descendants from the family of Jesus were still alive, among them the grandsons of Jude
          • The Romans felt that it was possible that rebellion might gather around these men, and they were ordered to appear before the Roman courts. When they did so, they were seen to be laborers and land workers, and were dismissed as being unimportant and quite harmless. Obviously, Jude was Jude the obscure, and there could have been no possible reason for attaching a book to the name of a man whom nobody knew
        • When a book was written under a pseudonym, the reader was never left in any doubt as to the person whose name it was being attached to
          • If this letter had ben sued as the work of Jude, the brother of Jesus, he would have certainly been given that Tiel in such a way that no one could mistake it; and yet, in fact, it is quite unclear who the author is
  • Jude is obviously Jewish; its references and allusions are such that only a Jew could understand them. It is simple and unrefined; it is vivid and pictorial. It is clearly not the work of a theologian. It fits Jude the brother of our Lord. It is attached to his name, and there could be no reason for doing that unless he did in fact write it
• Jude 1,2
• 1 Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James, To those who have been called, who are loved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: 2 Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance.
  • Few things tell more about people than the way in which they speak about themselves; few things are more revealing than the titles by which they wish to be known. Jude calls himself the servant of Jesus Christ and the brother of James. That tells us two things about him
    • Jude was a man happy to take second place
      • He was not nearly so well known as James; and he is content to be known as the brother of James. In this, he was the same as Andrew. Andrew was Peter’s brother. He was described by his relationship to a more famous brother. Jude and Andrew might well have been resentful of the brothers in whose shadow they had to live; but both had the great gift of gladly taking second place
    • The only title of honor which Jude would allow himself was the servant of Jesus
      • The Greek means more than servant—it means slave. That is to say, Jude regarded himself as having only one purpose and one distinction in life—to be forever at the disposal of Jesus for service in his cause. The greatest glory which any Christian can attain is to be of use to Jesus Christ
  • In this introduction, Jude uses three words to describe Christians
    • Christians are those who are called by God
      • The Greek for to call has three great areas of use
        • It is the word for summoning a person to office, to duty, and to responsibility. Christians are summoned to a task, to duty, and to responsibility in the service of Christ
        • It is the word for summoning someone to a feast or a festival. It is the word for an invitation to a happy occasion. Christians are people who are summoned to the joy of being the guests of God
        • It is the word for summoning a person to judgement. It is the word for calling people to court to give account of themselves. Christians are in the end summoned to appear before the judgement seat of Christ
      • Christians are those who are beloved in God
        • It is this great fact which determines the nature of the call. The call to men and women is the call to be loved and to love. God calls us to a task; but that task is the service of fellowship, not of tyranny. In the end, God calls us to judgement; but it is the judgement of love as well as of justice
      • Christians are those who are kept by Christ
        • As Christians we are never left alone; Christ is always watching over our lives, and He is our companion on the way
  • Here is a little more detail about this calling of God
    • Paul speaks about being called to be an apostle
      • In Greek, the word means to send out, and an apostle is therefore one who is sent out. That is to say, Christians are the ambassadors of Christ. They are sent out into the world to speak for Christ, to act for Christ, and to live for Christ. By their lives, they commend or fail to commend Christ to others
    • Paul speaks about being called to the be saints
      • The word for saint is also very commonly translated as holy. Its rood ideas is difference. The Sabbath is holy because it is different from other days; God is supremely holy because He is different from us. To be called to be a saint is called to be different. The world has its own standards and its own scale of values. The difference for Christians is that Christ is the only standard and loyalty to Christ the only value
    • Christians are called according to the purpose of God
      • God’s call goes out to everyone, although not everyone accepts it; and this means that, for every individual, God has a purpose. Christians are men and women who submit themselves to the purpose God has for them
  • Paul has a good deal to say about this calling of God, and we can only deal very briefly with it here. It sets before us a great hope. It should be a unifying influence binding people together by the conviction that they all have a part int he purpose of God. It is an upward calling, setting our feet on the way to the stars. It is a heavenly calling, making us think of the things which are invisible and eternal. It is a holy calling, a call to consecration to God. It is a calling which covers ordinary everyday tasks. It is a calling which does not alter, because God does not change His mind. It knows ho human distinctions and cuts across the world’s classifications and judgements. It is something of which Christians must be worthy; and all life must be one long effort to make it secure
  • The calling of God is the privilege, the challenge, and the inspiration of the Christian life